The Hunter

Chapter 17

Today is the day they will find out.

The thought ran circles through the Hunter's mind as he flew through the air, aiming himself (and those who followed him) like an arrow towards the Titan infested supply depot.

Those words slowed the Hunter's movements to a crawl as he paused on a roof top, waiting for the rest of his pack to land next to him.

He blinked several times, drawing in a what was supposed to be a deep, calming breath-

Which stuck in his throat like barbed wire as a familiar scent curled across his tongue.

His eyes widened and he looked around desperately, hastily trying to calm himself down, to double check, to make sure.

The hunter tasted the air, drawing in deep lungfulls of the stuff and rolling it over his tongue, slowly, thoughtfully.

It was hard to tell, over all the blood, sweat and other bodily fluids filling the air with their pungent stench, but... he was sure that he could smell Mikasa.

The problem was that he shouldn't have been smelling her. Mikasa was supposed to be on the rear guard, helping civilians and definitely not here. That didn't mean however that he could dismiss it as a mere mistake.

The Hunter knew that scent and he knew that for some reason Mikasa had diverged from the plan. Something had made her disobey orders and, for a moment, Eren was back and full of a sharp piercing fear.

The moment ended with the light patter of feet as his sq- pack landed next to him.

He couldn't risk them with his make believe games. He had to get them to the tower, had to save them all...

But the Hunter breathed in deep again and knew there was something he needed to do first.

"We are going that way,"

The humans simply nodded, following him and surprising the Hunter who had expected them to make some argument about going to the depot.

But they were silent, simply following him as he made his way through the maze of roof tops, chimneys and bloated bodies, occasionally stopping to draw in a breath of blood stained air.

Then there was a flash of red in the corner of his eye and the Hunter stopped, the hunter saw.

It was then that he froze, then that the blood in the Hunter's veins stopped running, that his breath crystallised in his chest, weighing down his body.

Mikasa was in a Titan's hand. She had been facing off against a Titan more than five times her size with little more than a broken blade and crushed gas cylinders.

She was bleeding.

The Hunter's breath hissed in his chest as he stared, wide eyed, utterly unmoving.

It had made her bleed. That thing was trying to eat her, stuff his flower into its mouth as if she was simply a piece of bread, as if she wasn't so much more than that.

This is the day they find out, the hunter thought distantly, not really registering the blurs of his pack as they flew past him (All but for Armin who stood by his friend's side, rooted to the spot in the horrifying sight of his best friend struggling in the grip of a monster.)

The hunter didn't look back once, as he raised his hand to his mouth and leaped forward, plummeting to the earth in a billowing cloud of steam.

It had been years, so many years now, since Eren had taken on his larger form.